Kukla's Korner Hockey

Don Van Massenhoven's career as a police officer did not prepare him for what he saw on the Detroit Red Wings bench Monday night.
"It still shook me up because it was the last place you would expect to see something like that," the veteran NHL referee from Strathroy said yesterday from Fort Lauderdale, where he'll work tonight's game between the Florida Panthers and New Jersey Devils.
"Tony Colucci came running down the corridor (to the bench) and had his jacket off. He already knew he was going to work. He didn't even hesitate. He knew what he had to do," said Van Massenhoven.

Fischer, then a rookie, lived at the home of Hurricanes D Aaron Ward when both were with the Wings. Ward was having a hard time believing a guy in such incredible shape could have health issues like Fischer has had. "I had to have the no-shirt rule in the house," said Ward yesterday. "He wasn't allowed to be shirtless in the house. The kid's built like a Greek god. I didn't want my wife seeing that. One day he was sitting at the computer with no shirt on and I'm like, 'Hey, Jiri, you know the rule!' "

from the Toronto Sun,

Jiri Fischer is one of the lucky ones. He may not necessarily feel that way, given that the future of his National Hockey League career is now in doubt, but the Detroit Red Wing defenceman definitely beat the odds.
Depending upon whose statistics you believe, anywhere between 350,000 and 500,000 North Americans go into sudden cardiac arrest while not in hospital every year. About 5% of them survive.